POPULARIZING
THE CLIL CLASSROOM
Margaret Rasulo
(Second University of Naples, Italy)
Abstract
This study focuses on the dissemination of knowledge through processes of popularization
in Content and Language Integrated Learning (henceforth CLIL) where English is the subject language. The article argues that non-language subject knowledge can be accommodated
and re-contextualized in order to foster learning through the mediating act of popularization,
which involves the presentation of areas of knowledge that are unknown to non-experts so as
to ensure accessibility and usability. The author aims to establish a parallel between CLIL
methodology and popularization processes, which must be brought to the surface and employed
in providing more effective ways of integrating language and content without impoverishing
the subject matter with oversimplification techniques.
The corpus of this study is based on responses from a questionnaire (Appendix) and transcripts from two different interview sessions conducted among 40 high school teachers who
were either already teaching Science and History classes in English or attending a University-based and Ministry-funded CLIL training course (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università
e della Ricerca (MIUR)). Evidence collected from May 2013 to November 2013 shows that
teachers generally support student learning in CLIL classes through the simplification of
both language and concepts rather than through the re-elaboration of content by using more
semantically effective explanatory strategies. This paper presents some of these discursive
strategies within a popularization framework, albeit in its initial stage of creation, with the
purpose of providing access to an improved understanding of subject concepts introduced in
a foreign language without reducing the cognitive challenge that is an essential ingredient in
the learning process.
1. Introduction
Despite the popularity of CLIL in today’s Italian educational system, many concerns
remain among school stakeholders about the feasibility of this methodology and its actual
long-term positive impact on learning processes. It is especially at the local level, however,
that doubts and uncertainties persist, and more so among those who are directly involved
in CLIL education, i.e. the teachers, many of whom have revealed that it is not an unusual
practice to take on CLIL classes without proper training. Intervention from the recent
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National Education Reform 1 has included CLIL in the standard national curriculum
but, so far, this has not significantly impacted on in-school CLIL provision. What is still
missing is an intelligent CLIL vision supported by whole-school involvement policies and
commitment that would encourage ongoing teacher training initiatives. Those involved in
planning and delivering the CLIL curriculum should be able to explore with professional
insight the relationship between content and language and the degree to which these
components should be integrated so that both are treated with equal importance.
2. Research questions and aims
The aim underpinning this ongoing project, which is represented by two overarching
research questions, is to assess the effectiveness and the quality of content delivery
when it becomes the object of a foreign language. The questions are:
1. how do subject teachers select and accommodate content to make it more accessible to
students without reducing its cognitive load and coverage?
2. how is subject content disseminated in a CLIL lesson and what kind of strategies are
employed?
This study is not only meant to investigate local conditions of a particular CLIL context, but it intends to use the data presented in this paper and in further investigations
as a methodological proposal that will hopefully enhance the understanding of how to
enable better learning and better teaching of a non-language subject content in English.
3. Methodology and corpus construction
The approach to data collection and analysis was based on the explorative ethnographic methods of observation and documentation which appeared to be the most
appropriate to report teacher narratives regarding CLIL. The personal nature of the
responses obtained from unstructured research items of the questionnaire and the interview sessions constitute working hypotheses about teacher decision-making and thought
processes in content selection and preparation, while quantitative data from a number
of structured items on the questionnaires regarding the delivery of subject content and
teacher actions greatly contributed to the understanding of CLIL dynamics.
Consequently, the study presented in this paper is based on a corpus of responses
from the following participants:
- eight teachers (four Science and four History), aged 35 to 50, of three upper secondary
schools, two in Naples and one in Salerno, regularly involved in teaching third-year CLIL
classes in a language high school. These teachers had also attended Comenius-funded
CLIL courses and seminars held by associations of language teachers;
- thirty-two Science and History teachers from language high schools of the Campania Region, aged 28 to 55, attending a university-based CLIL teacher training course organized
by the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR). Of this group of teachers:
1
Riforma Gelmini: Decreti del Presidente della Repubblica Ministeriali: DPR 88:2010; DPR 89:2010.
POPULARIZING THE CLIL CLASSROOM
123
- 12 had participated in school-based extracurricular CLIL projects and attended brief
courses or seminars;
- 20 had no prior experience with CLIL.
The English proficiency levels of the teachers ranged from B2 to C2. The questionnaire and the two interview types used as data collection tools are described in the
following section.
4. Knowledge-based society, knowledge dissemination and popularization
features
The above-mentioned research questions will be dealt with as the discussion
unfolds, but it is worth focusing momentarily on this study’s backbone concepts of
‘knowledge dissemination’ and the impact of a knowledge-based society on educational
practices. A key feature of this society is that it uses knowledge as the fundamental
resource for social and economic well-being with the result of transforming all of us
into knowledge seekers. Dissemination means activating a process to re-package and
communicate content with a particular audience in mind by using approaches that
consider the message, the audience, the expected outcome and the best dissemination
method (Van Dijck 2008). In this paper, knowledge dissemination is identified with the
process of popularization which I specifically draw on to establish analogies with the
CLIL environment. According to Calsamiglia and van Dijk (2004), popularization is a
process consisting of a large class of discursive-semiotic practices in which specialized
knowledge is mediated for the layperson. The authors state that non-specialized readers, by means of popularization texts, are able to relate their newly-acquired knowledge to old knowledge, thus enhancing their learning capability. Ciapuscio (2003: 210)
adds that popularization of texts basically means “re-contextualizing and reformulating one’s source in such a way that it is comprehensible and relevant for a different
kind of addressee, in a discursive context that, though predictable, differs from that
of the original source”.
Due to increasing interest in the General Sciences on the part of non-experts, as in
the case of the dissemination of medical information, the bulk of the literature on popularization processes is devoted to research in the field of scientific knowledge (Hyland
2010; Van Dijck 2008; Ciapuscio 2003), and this is the main reason behind the choice of
Science as one of the subject domains under investigation in this paper, followed by the
choice of History as the second CLIL subject in its representative role of the Humanities.
It is important to state that a comparative view of how the results differ regarding each
subject is not explicitly investigated, although subject-specific implications are certainly
another aspect of CLIL education with research potential.
This paper argues that the act of popularization, which is indeed “a global communicative act” (Calsamiglia and van Dijk 2004: 370), can take on a broader meaning if we
establish that it is a mediating strategy between the known and the unknown, between
the expert and the non-expert, between the specialized and the non-specialized. Its conciliatory role can positively impact on the CLIL classroom, where the study of subject
content can be difficult in Italian, but twice as challenging when students are faced with
studying it in English.
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In education, popularization is not one of the most familiar concepts, thus some keywords used in this paper have been re-contextualized within a classroom environment
for the sake of establishing a common understanding.
Popularization language
non-expert/lay person/audience
knowledge
dissemination
context
Classroom language
student/students
subject content/subject knowledge/discipline
presentation/teaching/lesson delivery/mediation
CLIL classroom/lesson/environment
5. Findings
5.1. Teacher questionnaires
The questionnaire in the Appendix was administered to the eight high school teachers involved in teaching CLIL in Year Three classes in a language-oriented high school
(liceo linguistico), and to the 12 teachers with past CLIL experience who were attending
the University training course.
Part One of the questionnaire contains four open-ended items related to methods of
content sources, selection, lesson presentation and activities. The analysis of a total of
20
(8+12) answers resulted in the classification of responses compiled according to the
criteria
of frequency and similarity. The results are reported in the following charts.
2 1 Figure 1. Item 1
Figure
3 3. Item 3
Figure 2. Item 2
Figure
4. Item 4
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POPULARIZING THE CLIL CLASSROOM
Item 1 shows that the Internet is the primary source of content material, followed by
the choice of other published materials available on the market. The topics are mostly
chosen according to ministerial indications, but also according to those that are ‘easier’
to deal with in English (Item 2). As regards content presentation, the most recurrent
strategy is simplification (rendere semplice, elementare), especially in terms of language
difficulty (Item 3). Simplification according to the teachers’ comments means using ‘elementary phrases’ that are ‘easy to understand’. Item 4 reveals that one of the causes of
teacher frustration is the lack of published CLIL materials containing a full repertoire of
content-language integrated activities. When these materials are not available, teachers
mostly focus on the activities involving definition and translation.
Part Two of the questionnaire was designed to tap into the teachers’ own perceptions
of style and content delivery in English, which is the aim of the second research question. In this part, popularization features were introduced as activities, albeit with the
awareness that some teachers would not be totally familiar with some of the strategies,
and this is what led to the integration of the interview as a supporting investigation
method. The results are reported in the table below.
PART II - CONTENT DELIVERY
To what extent do you conduct these activities
(in English)?
1. Provide opportunity to speak about the topic
before presenting it
2. Use visual organizers to help you present the
topic
3. Use handouts to accompany main text
4. Use code switching techniques and translation
(L2 to L1)
5. Use questioning techniques
6. Use corrective feedback techniques
7. Identification and definition of key lexical
items
8. Explanation and description of theories,
events, processes, etc. using your own words
9. Exemplification and description through
analogies and metaphors
10. Marked lexis to give discourse emphasis
11. Sequencing techniques
12. Narration techniques
13. Personalization techniques
14. Generalization, reformulation and
paraphrasing
Almost
never
1
Sometimes
Often
Always
3
Almost
always
2
12
0
0
2
3
15
0
0
5
0
13
0
1
2
1
18
0
0
0
0
1
7
2
3
11
15
14
1
3
2
1
1
7
9
2
1
18
2
0
0
0
15
16
16
17
17
3
3
3
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
2
Table 1. Results from Part II of teachers’ questionnaire
Table 1. Results from Part II of teachers’ questionnaire
These items reveal that most classroom work focuses on typical and perhaps more
traditional learning activities and on more familiar CLIL strategies such as code switching. The Often column draws the line of demarcation between higher and lower frequency activities. The first two columns on the right, the frequency indicators of Always and
Almost Always, report that the highest ranking strategies are using visual organizers,
code-switching and corrective feedback techniques. As for the first two columns on the
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left, Almost Never and Sometimes, the items with the highest frequency indicators (with
exception of Item 1) correspond to the discursive strategies that are rarely employed by
the teachers such as exemplification, description, analogies, metaphors, marked lexis,
sequencing, narration, personalization, generalization, reformulation and paraphrasing. The Often column also confirms that using handouts, definition and explanation
strategies are the most frequently employed activities in regular L1 classes. The activity
involving the definition of specific lexis needs further investigation as this might mean
either translating the term or conducting specialized research work on the term itself.
Nevertheless, through this item it was possible to detect that teachers are well aware
of the importance of teaching content-obligatory language (Mehisto et al., 2008), which
is the manifest representation of subject knowledge, but they are often unsure of how
to organize learning activities.
Part Three of the questionnaire (see Appendix) was a single question designed to
elicit any other piece of information that teachers needed to share.
The comments, some of which are reported below according to those most frequently
mentioned, provide interesting insights into how teachers actually feel about the additional responsibilities and challenges that inevitably come with CLIL teaching.
Confidence in L2
“I like teaching History in English, but my biggest worry is teaching for a full hour in the language. I
know I will make mistakes. I’m afraid of setting a bad example for my students”.
Preparation Time
“The CLIL lesson must be thought out differently from the L1 lesson, that’s why it takes more time.”
‘I’m in it alone’ feeling
My colleagues don’t understand what responsibility I have in teaching CLIL. They think it’s just a matter
of translating my L1 lesson into L2!
Lack of materials
Sometimes I spend hours looking for good material to use in class the next day. The Internet is a
wonderful source, but it’s not that you can just print out materials the way it is presented.
Parents
You always have to prove to the parents that it is worthwhile. They love the idea that their son or daughter
is learning more language, but are worried about the subject!
Rapport with language teachers
I’ve been teaching CLIL for 6 months now, and still have not spoken to the English language teacher.
L1 or L2?
I never know if I’m beginning to spend too much time on language work and not enough time on content.
5.2.
Thinking aloud pair interviews and whole-group questioning
As mentioned earlier in the paper, two types of interviews were designed to help
teachers ‘voice’ their actions. The first was a ‘thinking aloud’ technique that involved the
eight high school teachers with CLIL classes who were paired up according to similar
subject area. This facilitated the identification of the teachers’ thinking processes when
they approached the topics of content selection and preparation, content delivery and
most frequently used activities. The second interviewing strategy, a straightforward
questioning technique on the same three aspects, was conducted among the 32 teachers
attending the training course.
Regarding the 20 course participants with no prior direct CLIL experience, as expected from teachers undergoing an induction period, they were especially concerned with
more general aspects of how CLIL works, such as language and content integration, the
POPULARIZING THE CLIL CLASSROOM
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role of the L1 and L2 teachers and assessment issues, which are not specifically under
investigation in this paper, and consequently not reported here.
A selection of comments from teachers with direct experience in teaching CLIL classes is provided below:
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Content selection and preparation
Science teachers:
“I simplify it (the content topic) by making it elementary, I mean I simplify the difficult grammar
constructions. Take out difficult words and substitute them with easier ones”.
“I don’t waste time in class. If I know it’s difficult I translate words at home for them”.
History teachers:
“I use only some parts of the texts I find on the Internet, I summarize them into easier ones, and often I
have to use translation”.
Content Delivery
Science teachers:
“Sometimes I ask them to read it first in Italian at home. Then it’s easier to do in class. But I don’t go
into too much depth as it complicates things, students can’t handle longer stretches of explanations or
definitions”.
“I ask them to read the text aloud and then we translate it together”.
History teachers:
“When we are dealing with dates or important events I ask them questions about it before going on to
reading about them. Use translation when I need to”.
Science and history teachers:
“I show them pictures or maps or video and then ask them to talk about it”.
“We read parts of texts then I ask them to stop and discuss what they have understood”.
Most frequently used activities
History teacher:
“I put students in groups and give them a topic to study together so in class they can present it to the
other groups”.
Science teacher:
“I ask them to study the topic. They present it to the class”.
“I ask them to work on a project together. Then they get a mark for it”.
Science and History teachers:
“I ask them to do some Internet work on it (the topic). First in Italian so they understand it. Then we look
at the English version”.
“Ask them to study what we went through in class and be prepared to talk about it the next time”.
The general response that emerges from these comments is that facilitation of text
comprehension consists mainly of definition and translation strategies. There is very
little evidence that any significant work is being done to develop other discursive strategies in favour of content accessibility.
6. Discussion and proposals
6.1. Re-contextualizing subject knowledge
What the above results highlight is that making content more accessible often means
making things easier by employing brief question-and-answer sessions and translating
strategies rather than developing and bringing to the surface discursive strategies that
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would allow students to handle the re-formulation of content in a more specialized
manner.
Many would argue that there is nothing wrong with that, but elementarizing content
inevitably leads to transforming it into overly simplified texts, stripped of any sort of
cognitive challenge. There is no evidence in the data collected that re-contextualization
processes are actually taking place, which implies that these processes are probably
not easily detected in teacher actions and teacher dialogue, thus making it difficult for
students to pick up and use. Particularly interesting is the argument put forth by Dalton-Puffer (2007: 38-41) that these discursive strategies have an underlying recognizable structure that is naturally embedded in language. It is precisely this structure that
needs to be made explicit to students through popularization strategies, in what Walqui
(2006) describes as a continuing scaffolding cycle of presentation and re-presentation of
content. At this relatively early stage of the project, I am able to offer a basic framework
of CLIL popularizing strategies, with the obvious consideration that teachers will need
to devise a series of activities in order to embed these support structures in the various
stages of the lesson (preview, explanation, elaboration, exploration and engagement).
The framework illustrated in the table below includes the most salient features and the
functional aspects that these strategies generate.
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Uses of popularization strategies
Analogy - Description - Metaphor:
Employ
- descriptive techniques: looks like, smells like, sounds like, adjectives, adverbs
- appropriate vocabulary to describe objects, participants, events, actions, events,
processes
Create a clear image of what is being described
Give information that can be easily grasped
Classification:
Employs
- clustering techniques (mind maps, brainstorming)
- outlines with headings and subclasses
Lists
- items in each subclass with details and characteristics
Organizes
- information in a logical way
Definition:
Classifies
- objects, events, subjects, emotions, etc.
Differentiates
- subjects by presenting specific features
Compares
- theories, principles, objects, events, subjects, emotions. etc.
Explanation:
Names and defines
- objects, parts, purposes, etc.
Describes
- how something works
- special features
Uses
- sequencing phraseology
- transitional words and signposts (I’m going to explain, the reason for, the cause/result is)
Gives
- details
- topic words
- reasons
Exemplification
Chooses
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- how something works
- special features
Uses
- sequencing phraseology
- transitional words
andCLASSROOM
signposts (I’m going to explain, the reason for, the cause/result is)
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POPULARIZING
THE CLIL
Gives
- details
- topic words
- reasons
Exemplification
Chooses
- manageable topics
- clear support examples
Provides
- steps of the exemplification process
- details arranged coherently
Generalization
Provides
- sufficient evidence, samples, examples to support topic
- qualifying words or phrases (among those studied, are likely to, one of the reasons)
Marked Lexis
Creates
- emphasis
- strategic foregrounding of important meanings
Employs
- discourse markers to draw attention (Yes, what you said is true, DNA is a very long and simple double
helix molecule)
Paraphrasing
Re-organizes
- the structure of the subject in a more familiar layout (note form, outlines)
Employs
- synonyms/antonyms to vary, compare, simplify, explain specific terminology and concepts
Personalization
Involves students through
- marked phraseology (if you think this is not right...)
- the ‘I’ pronoun (I personally think...)
- anecdotal and personal details (when I studied this in school...)
Questioning
Engages students through
- dialogic involvement to think about the topic, or acknowledge alternative views
- challenging, non-rhetorical structures
Reformulation
Revises
- discourse using different wording
Prompts
- ‘noticing’ techniques to detect differences
Categorizes
- noticed items into language areas
Sequencing
Identifies and defines
- the components of an event, process, procedure, theory, etc.
- the purpose or function within an event, process, procedure, theory, etc.
Retells
- the events, steps, processes within a given text in the order in which they occur
Table
2. Popularization strategies and functions
As acts of communication, the popularization strategies listed above have a strong
affinity with academic language functions such as those contained within the Cummins
framework of CALP – Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (2007). The CLIL classroom, in the same way as the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) classroom, should
model “what the student is trying to do in the future […] rather than what the student
can do now” (Alexander et al: 2008: 8). This seems to address the issue of working to-
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wards continuing education and autonomous learning in another language. The author
argues that learner autonomy, which in itself is an essential aspect of CLIL (Wolfe
2011), can be enhanced by employing both popularization strategies and academic language functions in the regular teaching repertoire. The table below illustrates one of the
possible visualizations of this blend of functions that can guide students towards CLIL
proficiency in a lifelong learning perspective. One of the aspects that this visualization
highlights, as is to be expected, is the overlapping of strategies and functions. However,
it is worth noting that this occurrence is only natural as both discursive skills share one
common goal, that of facilitating learning.
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Popularization strategies (teacher initiated)
Academic language functions (student generated)
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analogy-description-metaphor
classification
definition
explanation
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exemplification
generalization
marked lexis
paraphrasing
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personalization
questioning
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reformulation
comparing-explaining-describing-analysing-inferring
analysing-ordering-classifying
analysing-defining-explaining-evaluating
analysing-comparing-justifying-persuading-seeking
information
explaining-describing-comparing-giving information
hypothesizing-drawing conclusions-evaluating
justifying-persuading-ordering-giving information
giving information-explaining-synthesizing-orderinginferring
seeking information-explaining- giving information
seeking information-giving information-explainingproblem solving
giving information-describing-narratingsynthesizing-comparing-analysing
narrating-ordering-classifying-evaluating
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sequencing
Table 3. Blended popularization strategies and academic functions
At this point, one might ask: why not just concentrate on academic functions instead
of popularization features? The reason is the attribution of focus. Academic functions,
which are indeed more familiar to teachers, albeit insufficiently exploited in the classroom, are generated and processed by the student, thus they possess an inherent focus
on the learning process. Popularization strategies, on the other hand, are teacher-initiated and represent the language facilitation techniques teachers can use to mediate
their action and dialogue in the CLIL classroom (Linares et al. 2012). They act as model
functions that students can acquire alongside CALP functions, but they possess an
inherent focus on the teaching process. Through popularization teachers create “comprehensible input” (Krashen: 1985) which ensures that students understand, interiorize
and reformulate the heavier linguistic and cognitive load that characterizes a CLIL
learning environment.
When the domains of popularization strategies, academic language functions, the
foreign language and the subject content (Figure 5) join forces to make integrated
learning happen, the outcome is the creation of a new CLIL interactional context, a
framework of discursive activity characterized by reduced complexity strategies that
do not impoverish the authenticity of the original source content by the mere act of
simplification.
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Subject content Popularization strategies CLIL EDUCATIONAL INTERACTION Foreign language Academic language functions Figure 5. The CLIL Educational Interaction Model
It is quite a task for the author to give a full account within the scope of this single
article of how the teachers can incorporate these discursive strategies into everyday
activities However, the extract provided below of a Science lesson plan on DNA is an
example of the popularization strategy of exemplification.
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Title of lesson: the functioning of DNA
Subject aim(s): to introduce the topic of DNA;
Overview: A basic knowledge of DNA structure, function, and location, and that DNA contains
heritable instructions for building and maintaining an organism.
Language aim(s) and sub-aims:
- to highlight discursive strategies used in exemplification (break down steps of the exemplification:
process to explain, describe, define, give information)
- underline terms that students will need to define and use in their explanation of DNA.
Assumptions:
Students are familiar with DNA specific lexis presented in previous lessons.
Teacher activity
Presentation
Teacher preparation notes – write notes under a diagram of DNA shown on the Interactive
Whiteboard and give students a handout of the same notes.
• DNA is a nucleic acid made of two strands of nucleotides wound together in a spiral called a
double helix.
• Each nucleotide is composed of a sugar molecule known as deoxyribose, a phosphate group,
and one of four different nitrogenous bases.
• The phosphate and sugar parts of the nucleotides form the backbone of each strand in the
DNA double helix.
• In cells, each chromosome consists of DNA wrapped around proteins. The chromosomes are
contained in the nucleus inside a nuclear membrane.
Diagram
To help students visualize DNA use the following diagram in your discussion (diagram not included).
Specific lexis
Webquest activity: link to online dictionary and thesaurus to find definition of words in bold.
Groupings
Whole class for first two activities
Pairs for Webquest activity
Student activity
- Listen to the teacher by looking at the whiteboard
- Take notes on handouts provided by the teacher
- Ask questions for clarification
Diagram
To help students visualize DNA use the following diagram in your discussion (diagram not included).
Specific lexis
Webquest activity: link to online dictionary and thesaurus to find definition of words in bold.
Groupings
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Whole class for first two activities
Pairs for Webquest activity
Student activity
- Listen to the teacher by looking at the whiteboard
- Take notes on handouts provided by the teacher
- Ask questions for clarification
- Carry out the Webquest in pairs
Extension (homework)
Prepare a ppt. that includes information from the teacher’s notes, notes taken in class and from
Webquest
Materials
The Internet
Handouts
Interactive Whiteboard (also for ppt. presentations)
Table 4. DNA lesson plan
6.2. Production of quality materials for syllabus design
There is, however, an aspect of extreme importance that has not received full attention in this paper, but has been mentioned throughout the discussion and that is
the availability of CLIL materials for syllabus construction, which is one of the most
commonly reported problems in Italian CLIL environments. The small number of teacher-prepared History and Science texts collected and analysed by the author in this phase
of the study have made it impossible to report any conclusive results, but what should
be apparent by now is the fact that L1 lessons cannot be simply translated to become
a CLIL syllabus, which implies that teachers will have to use all available resources to
develop a coherently structured CLIL subject curriculum that can display discursive
features such as the ones presented above. One way that this can be done is by using
lesson plans as learning materials, which basically involves the use of two simple routine
activities that facilitates flipping 2 teaching materials into learning materials:
1. plan teaching materials that can be used in class both as teaching tools but also as models
that can be used for student learning,
2. collect the teaching materials (power point presentations, teacher presentation notes,
outlines, mind maps, chapter or article reformulations and summaries, handouts) and
give them a coherent sequence and structure (headings, units, modules) to be used as
student study packs and workbooks.
Mehisto (2012: 16) argues that “quality learning materials do more than just communicate information. They promote critical and creative thought, discussion and
learner autonomy”. Ready-made materials are always welcomed by any teacher for
obvious reasons, but we should not underestimate the validity of in-house materials.
The implication, of course, is that instead of stripping down texts and making them
unchallenging, teachers should foster understanding by incorporating the scaffolding
effect of popularizing features in content presentation, which means using quality
materials as vehicles. Cummins (2007) explains that if teachers make learning cognitively easier, they may be impoverishing the learning environment, with the obvious
result of making it more difficult for the student to learn essential academic language
they need to acquire.
2
Retrieved from www.ted.com.
POPULARIZING THE CLIL CLASSROOM
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7. Limitations of study and further research
Two limitations need to be addressed in this project. The first is to be attributed to
the nature of this study’s exclusion of students’ viewpoints. This was an inevitable research priority as the first stage of the project was meant to be an initial awareness-raising discussion primarily addressed to those involved in the teaching of CLIL, but soon
to be followed by further research that will include students as the recipients. However,
it is understood that although the students are not the direct targets of this survey, as
their views have not been properly reported, any research in education is always about
students and the discussion undertaken in this paper was ultimately about them.
The second limitation directly concerns the actual implementation of the popularization approach within a complex and still relatively unexplored educational setting where
one-model-fits-all recipes are not functional. CLIL can only prosper within a flexible
context, but there are quite a few unresolved issues related to teacher readiness and
willingness to go beyond the definition-translation activities and explore more challenging ways to encourage content and language learning.
8. Conclusions
What started as a research interest in popularization features in non-educational
fields soon turned into a research aim for the benefit of educational improvement. This
study, small-scale as it is, has provided evidence that the majority of the teacher-participants can do a lot more to improve content accessibility in CLIL contexts in terms of:
1. reduced complexity rather than simplification;
2. re-presentation/re-formulation/re-contextualization of texts rather than impoverishment;
3. scaffolding through discursive strategies rather than translation from L1 to L2.
The students are the ones who probably suffer the complexities of CLIL education
the most because they face the additional challenge of learning content in a foreign
language. Teacher practitioners and researchers must therefore find methods and approaches to facilitate the integration of language, content and learning skills so that
critical thinking is fostered. Popularizing the CLIL classroom is strongly advocated in
this study as an approach that can help teachers and students progress towards an
authentic and significant learning experience, and not only in a CLIL lesson but during
a lifetime.
References
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POPULARIZING THE CLIL CLASSROOM
Appendix
Teacher Questionnaire
PART I - CONTENT SELECTION AND PREPARATION
Please write your answers in the box provided below for each item.
Item 1
What are the sources of your subject content material for CLIL?
Item 2
How do you select the topics for your CLIL syllabus?
Item 3
When you prepare your CLIL lessons, how do you adapt content for L2 presentation?
Item 4
What kind of activities do you use to present content-specific language?
PART II - CONTENT DELIVERY
To what extent do you conduct these activities
(in English)?
1. Provide opportunity to speak about the topic
before presenting it
2. Use visual organizers to help you present
the topic
3. Use handouts to accompany main text
4.
5.
Use code switching techniques and
translation (L2 to L1)
Use questioning techniques
6.
Use corrective feedback techniques
7.
Identification and definition of key lexical
items
Explanation and description of theories,
events, processes, etc. using your own
words
Exemplification and description through
analogies and metaphors
8.
9.
Almost
never
Sometimes
Often
10. Marked lexis to give discourse emphasis
11. Sequencing techniques
12. Narration techniques
13. Personalization techniques
14. Generalization, reformulation and
paraphrasing
PART III - Please share any other comment about your CLIL experience.
Almost
always
Always